paradoxworldfandomcom-20200214-history
Harbinger Gunship
This bold design, FTAC-X2 Harbinger Gunship is one of many designs made by the FutureTech. The Harbinger was supposed to be a revolutionary in the Allied Air Force, prevailing a possible conflict with the Soviet Union before it even started, but in the end Harbinger ended as failure and exhibit in the museum. The Theory One popular theory about how the Allies achieved limited victory in the war says nothing of the Proton Collider, or the Chronosphere, or any of the Allies' high-tech advantages unveiled later on in the conflict. No, the theory goes that the Allies' fearless air squadrons are largely responsible. Once they asserted a decisive hold over contested airspaces, their enemies were cut off and divided, and the Allies could paradrop reinforcements and supplies wherever necessary. From that point, victory was only a matter of time. Furthermore, pilots of Vindicator-class sortie bombers racked up the single highest confirmed-kill ratio of any single division of the Allied military. Thus, by the end of the war, the quality of the Allies' air power was not a subject of much dispute. Even still, FutureTech Corporation openly continued working on an aircraft model that promised to usher in a new era of air support. That aircraft is the FTAC-X2, better known as the Harbinger gunship. Originally, the Harbinger was planned to have its own design, but to lessen the cost it was decided it will be worked into existing plane. The decision fell on C-47 Galaxy Heavy Cargo Plane, the largest existing cargo plane in that time in the world, which was previously used for another gunship, AC-47 Spooky Gunship. Dwarfing even the Allies' own Century heavy bomber, the Harbinger's advanced sensors and weapon systems allow it to hold and secure large areas, as well as to provide heavy fire support to any surface forces in the vicinity. The Harbinger is a veritable flying fortress, and is armed to the teeth with nothing less than the power of the Allies' ultimate weapon, the Proton Collider. Although the technology used in the Proton Collider remains a well-kept secret, the Allied top brass (as directed by Allied official Rupert Thornley himself) agreed to disclose that particular secret to FutureTech Corporation in exchange for services tendered, and in order to fulfill the ambitions of the Harbinger international design team. Before this, the FutureTech team speculatively came up with an aircraft blueprint more massive any known turbofan jet to date, whose ability to fly in fact hinged on the need for an on-board Collider fuel cell -- one that was small enough to fit on such a gigantic plane. The story goes, because FutureTech had mostly deduced how the Proton Collider works, Allied brass reluctantly agreed to partner with the corporation in order to complete a prototype of what later became the Harbinger gunship. The prototype model of the gunship features not one but two starboard-mounted 120 mm Collider Cannons, each one packing the explosive punch of a howitzer of roughly the same size. Because the fuel cell provides the Collider Cannons with their ammunition and also runs the Harbinger's four redundant turbofan engines, the thing can get off the ground and remain airborne for days. Unlike other aircraft in the Allied arsenal, the Harbinger prototype eschewed a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) design and needs to continually orbit while trained on a target. This, together with the Harbinger's sheer size, also means it is incapable of landing at a standard Allied airbase. Fortunately, the Harbinger features FutureTech's proprietary self-diagnostics-and-repair system, which makes up for its inability to touch down for repairs while out in the field. Meanwhile, an elaborate array of sensors and communication equipment lets Harbinger crews keep a lock on terrestrial targets during flight. Also, to make up for the Collider Cannons' inability to strike precisely at a chosen destination, the Harbinger features a nose-mounted 25 mm chain gun linked to targeting systems that track the gunner's eye movements. These extremely accurate weapons can shred lightly-armored surface threats without causing significant damage to the environs. All of the Harbinger's weaponry is directed toward the ground, however. Enemy air superiority fighter squadrons could conceivably give it a hard time, though the Harbinger's armor has been shown in simulations to suffer barely a scratch from a Soviet MiG fighter's Matryoshka missile. The Harbinger gunship's prototype crew was hand-picked by FutureTech from its private flight schools, as men demonstrating the coolness under fire and whichever other rare personality traits and skills that FutureTech strictly demands of its teams. Initially, Allied officials were publicly miffed at the idea that their ace airmen might not be qualified to get behind the yoke of a Harbinger, though Pres. Thornley himself quickly smoothed the issue over, yielding to FutureTech on that particular requirement. Both the Allies and FutureTech Corporation have since denied or dismissed rumors of ongoing tensions between Harbinger crews and the Allies' own fighter jocks, even though the latter see the former as "a pack of vultures circling the skies sniffing for blood," according to one Allied pilot who wished to remain anonymous. At any rate, both camps agree that the Harbinger cannot be successful without Allied fighter escort, and that airmen on both sides must routinely and trustingly put their lives into each other's hands even in today's postwar missions. The Fact The truth of the matter, though, is that the Allies were not interested in these wonder weapons FutureTech was parading. For one thing, the Harbinger was expensive. Though the Allies were not above high cost aircraft, these aircraft had to be worth the cost. Why buy one Harbinger and its airborne support system when a Commander could requisition an entire wing of Vindicators? Reliability concerns were also present in the flying behemoth. Proton Collider weaponry, particularly those intended to fire more than tiny handfuls of protons at a time, are known for massive recoil; Proton Collider cannons are anchored several meters below the ground in order to handle the massive recoil, and the miniaturized Particle Expellers and Proton Gauntlets of the Rocketeer fire considerable fractions of a single mole of hydrogen. By comparison, the massive weapons of the Harbinger were intended to shoot nearly an entire milligram of hydrogen, the stress forces of which would visible shift the aircraft and caused massive mechanical problems. Harbingers were said to have more than fifty hours of maintenance for every hour of airtime, and the work could only be done by specially trained FutureTech employees. Following the disastrous tests of the Battle of Flanders, the Allies cut off the Harbinger's funding after the New Year budget report indicated as much as two hundred million dollars would be necessary to iron out these flaws. As was aptly spoken by President Ackerman, "What are you, nuts? This is 1968, that amount of money doesn't even exist!" The other major reason is that FutureTech itself was on shaky ground. FutureTech had frittered away money on outlandish and unrealistic projects, like a twin Grand Cannon equipped hovercraft and a building sized combat robot. Allied High Command was not impressed. FutureTech was made a laughingstock when one eccentric executive theorized that the Rising Sun would strike back with a giant stone head that shot lightening out of its mouth. Competition from foreign competition added to FutureTech's woes, and it is nearing bankruptcy. The X-3 FutureTech finally found a much cheaper way to improve the Harbinger, take off the chaingun, which was rather expensive due to it being made of titanium, and reinforce the armour. This Harbinger only came out about $1000 more expensive, but it was still in low quanity, only allowing an Allied Commander to have just one on the battlefied at a time. The most notable addition was the Collider Generator overload, decimating nearby aircraft. Due to this new addition, the Harbinger now required repair drones to swarm around it, and the crew were required to wear a new suit that can resist the effects of the Collider Generator Overload. Still, the Allies were not impressed. The X-4, and the Future The X-4 is the current model of Harbinger, and is perhaps the best so far. Re-equipping the Chaingun, the Harbinger was no longer weak to infantry threats, such a Flak Trooper squad. At a smaller note, the Harbinger's weapon loadout also swaps the Collider Cannon for a conventional cannon that just fires collider-powered shells. It's rumoured that there's an X-5 that fires Promethium Napalm Collider Shells, but that's probably baloney. For one thing, it's a myth created by Soviet soldiers suffering PTSD, who also claim that there are soldiers who have the ability to create new units. The second argument is the geography, so, its probably impossible to have FutureTech and who ever created these weapons Team up to and share their weaponry! Many commanders rest their case on this argument. In reality, a weapon similar to this mythological substance is used, a new variant of collider technology called Melta. Melta technology does exactly as its name suggests, melts what ever is hit. However, it doesn't melt immediately, but it melts overtime. External Links *The Harbinger Gunship unit spotlight at the Red Alert 3 Website Category:Lore Category:Units